Let's Make it Like Klimt!

There is a gorgeously odd still life hanging above my chair in the living room. It isn’t in the style of my artist daughter,  or any of the artists she buys and it is a mixed media mystery. So I asked for the story. Many years ago at the 1939 New York World’s fair a  young woman submitted artwork for a contest and was given an art school scholarship. But she never accepted it. Her family said no. You can imagine, given the time frame, all the reasons why. It was too far from home, she was too young, it wasn’t “seemly” any number of practical or cultural reasons why a young woman wouldn’t be permitted to go away to art school. Whatever the reasons she didn’t go. She got an education, though, and became a meteorologist. A scientific position quite remarkable for a woman of her time. But my still life?

When she was old, very old and in a nursing home, she went to a class and painted the beginning of a still life. Only a flower pot outlined with a few bare stems in the jar. That was all. All that was left of her creativity, imagination or possibly her energy on that day. Or maybe it was a contrived lesson and that’s all the farther she got. My artist daughter retrieved the unfinished still life and brought it home to Missouri on a piece of water color paper. After she color washed the background her daughter, the great grand daughter of the woman in the contest, who started the unfinished still life said. “I’ll finish it. Let’s make it like Klimt. “ And no one told her no.

No one told her, Klimt would have painted a whole landscape and not an indoor flower pot. No one told her she didn’t know enough about Klimt to parody his work. No one told her to go to the internet and spend another 6 months studying his landscapes and then come back. No one told her no. So she got materials, sat down, and turned the unfinished work of a woman who never became the artist she could have been, into a beautiful still life that for all the world acknowledges the colors, shapes, and to some extent the world view of Klimt. 

If you are (or were) a writer, actor, artist, sculptor, singer, performer, composer have you left your work because someone told you no? Did you walk away from the colors of expression and toward a science or a job that made a living for practical or cultural reasons? Would you like to find that creative part of you to say yes again? The part that can take the old unfinished dry stick of a work and bloom it into the beautiful expression of yourself you were meant to give? It’s possible. 

Join me in the Artists Way. A 12 week experiential journey to find the creativity that is in all of us. Starting  at the Paper Birch Landing Gallery on March 29. Come find the Masterpiece…that is you. 

Open the Windows for the Arts, Kansas City.

“I’ve got people, I tell you.” That’s what I say when ever anyone has a problem. It’s kind of a Kansas City thing. You need a recipe? A place to stay? A job, a doctor, a church, a new car, a ticket, a reference, an interview? People in Kansas City know people. Not like in New York where you pull strings, or in Chicago where you…well I’m not sure really what you do in Chicago. But here we build relationships. That’s really why I got so involved with the Royals games last year. I’m not much of an athlete. My cousins will tell you their little league softball team beat mine every time when we were in elementary school. My love for the Kansas City Royals, it’s about the story, the big picture the long term team relationships. 

It’s about character. Kansas City is all over character. You know the story. The winning Royals went to visit the Chiefs and somehow that team character —that underdog; we-are-all-one-team-spirit— kind of rubbed off. The Chiefs haven’t lost a game since. I don’t know enough about football to know if that’s the whole story. I haven’t watched all the football games this season. But I watched a whole season of baseball. Me. The person with three music degrees. Why? Because I love Kansas City? Yes. Because I understand baseball enough to know what’s going on? Yes. But more because of the relationships. Because of the character. I LOVE that guy Morales and his underdog story of leaving Cuba, coming back to win after not doing well. I LOVE that Salvador Perez is a kid from a little village who smiles all the time and is concerned for the guy from the other team when he gets knocked in the head. I LOVE that the winning run comes from that Colon guy who didn’t play for a month and then stood up and delivered in the World Series when he had to. I love all of the stories in between about loyalty, friendship, integrity and good old fashioned depth of character.

How in the world does that matter to the arts? To me, it’s the same kind of team I want us to build into the arts in Kansas City. I used to say that musicians are easier to talk to because you must have at least two musicians in a room to make music. Now an artist can close the door and make art all by themselves, but that is wrong. Artists need each other. They need someone to discuss, evaluate, brainstorm, see with new eyes, and yes, to be an audience for their work. They need relationships with other artists to recognize the value of art in their own life and in the world. Art really does change us, heal us, make us better. We cannot afford to let our artists close the door. We must open the doors and the windows and invite them into relationship with each other and with those who don’t yet understand how much art matters. 

At Paper Birch Landing Studio and Gallery we are planing many ways to connect artists to each other and to our community. I’m very excited about building a team with the same principles that have led Kansas City to be recognized as the best in the world. I’ve got people you know. You need art? You need a painter, a poet, a writer, a baker, a candlestick maker? I’ve got people on my team:

Artists like Polly Alice whose fine arts background provides an eye for what is quality and how to connect creative people together. Authors like Tessa Elwood who dreams dreams of other worlds and then takes time to help new writers create their own worlds. Catalysts like Heather Collingsworth who can not only make incredible art herself, but can find and connect the best artists in Kansas City with each other and with new audiences. Designers like Nicholas Clark, artist in residence, whose understanding of what kind of art Kansas City really loves means we are on track for a winning team. Come and hear their story, or let us tell yours. We are opening our doors and windows and you’re invited in. To see how art matters.

Hart of Art in Kansas City

“Silent Night . . . . Oh Holy Night!” Under the beautiful Beaux arts ceiling, the children’s voices waft over the Christmas tree, the people gathered around to listen, and me—- on an ancient wooden bench, “We sing for the children who have no voice…” echoes out into Union Station.

I’ve been living away from home for twenty-four years, but in August my family swept me back to Kansas City. I am home for Christmas to stay. The children's' voices prove to me what I believe more every day: Kansas City is on the cutting edge of the Arts in America. This little Christmas card perfect moment captures one snapshot of the enormous variety of art and music this season. Art matters to Kansas City. 

Here’s what I’ve experienced musically in only four months in Kansas City: 

• I’ve introduced two family members to opera at the Kauffman
• Bell Prairie’s elementary choir perform two pieces of music in October then grow their performance into a 30 minute repertoire at Union Station
• Parkville South’s high school concert choir honor veterans with a stellar musical tribute—probably just a part of their school day…but musically superb kids!
• A saxophone player on the Plaza setting the mood
• Paseo Academy for the Arts Chorale perform two stunningly beautiful works as a community service for a local church
• Performed a cantata with the Central United Methodist Church Choir and Bell Ringers 

I turned down more musical invitations than there were weekends. Excellent. These are folks I just run into because they are doing their job sharing their art with the community. I wanted a place to play the handbells. I played in Atlanta before I came home and loved it. I found a church near the plaza: Central United Methodist. It boasts handbells and a choir and a combined ministry with an African congregation. That means, I can hear young voices sing and worship in Swahili every week—and that connects me to the students I used to have in Arlington Virginia that I miss so much.

When I went to rehearse the cantata at Central UMC, I looked up at the ceiling and there was an 80 foot silk angel! A beautiful installation worthy of any fine gallery. Designed by volunteers and installed by art students from UMKC, it represented to me how much the church members love the arts in Kansas City. 

Why would people go to so much trouble? Because art matters to people in Kansas City.

What am I doing about it? Since August, I helped to found The New Thing Art Studio and watched it morph very capably into a boutique gallery at Paper Birch Landing in Midtown. It’s a studio and gallery to serve new and emerging artists. The combined efforts with three terrific women: Heather Fiona, Polly Alice, & Tessa Elwood. I attended Tessa’s incredible book launch for her YA novel “Inherit the Stars.” It was complete with food and art by members of Paper Birch Landing Gallery. I’ve watched three young women who love the arts come together and begin a nascent art gallery. I believe it will serve artists, writers and thinkers in Kansas City in a new and exciting way. And every time they start a new project, I am more and more convinced their cutting edge thinking will have a positive effect on other artists and on those who don’t really yet understand the powerful and necessary work of the arts in their lives.

So where does that lead us? On Tuesday, I took three generations of Benton relatives to see the Thomas Hart Benton exhibit. My mother was Eleanor Benton, granddaughter of John Benton (who was not the famous senator but a cousin). So all my life, I’ve known the work of THB and known I was a part of his family. You may know him as, “that guy who painted the murals in the Capitol building.” When I was a kid, he was just a question on the Civics test. So imagine my surprise, when we could not even get into the parking garage at the Nelson-Atkins. People were swarming toward the ticket line like it was the K for the Royals opening game. We did get in. And surprisingly everyone was there to see Thomas Hart Benton. The exhibit was packed.

We waited in line behind fifty other people and waded through the crowd to see his paintings up close. I did it because  I wanted to show the next generation that this person is part of our heritage. However,  the crowd taught me that everyone in Kansas City cares about our local Thomas Hart Benton and everybody cares about his art because it belongs to all of us. 

Like I said—Kansas City knows its art. Kansas City is on the cutting edge. Kansas City loves and supports the arts from the tiniest child’s play to the church musician to their own long lost son, visual artist, Thomas Hart Benton. 

And just like that night at the Union Station, I saw the Kansas City I always wanted to come home to. I feel like George at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life," or Dorothy after Aunty Em looked in her eyes and she was home. 

Good old Union Station. Good old Kansas City skyline. Good old Nelson-Atkins Museum. I’ve put my ruby red slippers in the closet and I am home sweet home.